


All Souls Lost

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4214640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Terrible weather,” Salladhor said, as soon as the gangplank had fallen, “Weather for killing lords, it seems.”</p>
<p>The first time Davos heard his king's name, he was nineteen and working the docks of Kings Landing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Souls Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/gifts).



The tail end of a storm blew in from the east that night, soaking King’s Landing with an unseasonable, cold rain. The streets of Flea Bottom ran thick with mud that morning, and Davos cursed as he slipped and slithered his way down to the docks. He had taken to not wearing his boots in the summer, in the style of the Summer Islanders who he saw unloading their wares from their bright, colourful ships. On a normal day, the dusty stones were warm beneath his feet even at the early hour he left home, and the endless days of bare feet made one pair of boots go for longer than any cheap boot had a right to last.

Few people had ventured out into the last of the rain that morning and those who had hurried past, buried in their hoods. Davos stopped at the baker and bought a fresh bread roll, warm from the oven. Marya would scold him for spending the money but it was a cold dawn and she would not begrudge him the warmth the bread would bring.

The sea was churning when Davos arrived at the dock, the wind stronger down here in the exposed bay. A few ships had already left, tiny dots on the open sea, and a few new ones had sailed through the storm and made it safely to dock. Davos ran along one of the small jetties and thrust his feet into the icy water, rinsing off the worst of the mud and grime.

“Davos, son,” a voice cut through the still air, “Stop pissing about and get over here!”

Owayne stood at the top of the gangplank of a Tyroshi trader, waving frantically.

“Come on, youngster. Going to be a busy day.”

“Alright, Grandfather. I’m here, aren’t I?” Davos laughed, skipping up the gangplank and dodging the blow to his ear. Owayne was barely old enough to have been his father, let alone his grandfather, with thirty seven name days to Davos’ nineteen, but he fussed and clucked around his youngest team member so much that it had become a familiar joke.

“A lot due in today,” Owayne announced as his team formed the working chain to pass the cargo boxes off to the quayside, “And there will be probably be more coming in for repairs.”

The Tyroshis, usually a friendly bunch, emerged grim-faced from the holds of the little ship and stumbled down the gang plank, some even kneeling on the ground and pressing their foreheads to it. They whispered prayers in their strange tongue; the only word Davos could pick out was ‘thank you.’

“Seems it was a bad one,” Almaric, the last but one in line, said. He was a grizzled old sailor, hardened by years at sea and teller of the best stories Davos had ever heard, “Seemed as though the Stranger himself was out there stalking them, one of these Tyroshi told me.”

Davos’ gang had seven men, one of ten similar groups who worked at loading and unloading. Owayne led them, then there was Davos and Alamaric; Orlo and Antin, twins from the furthest reach of the Iron Islands; Allan, from White Harbour and Tomm, a fellow Flea Bottomer. All of them had years on Davos, so he worked the end of the line, running further than any of them and receiving less pay. He did not mind. It was honest work and there was precious little of that.

It was late in the day when the last ship sailed into the bay, but Davos knew it straight away. Salladhor Saan was a smuggler, everyone knew, but he did enough honest trade that no one looked twice. He was generous too, flamboyant and almost as exotic as the Summer Islanders. Davos liked him a great deal.

“Terrible weather,” Salladhor said, as soon as the gangplank had fallen, “Weather for killing lords, it seems.”

“Lords?” Davos said, “What lords?”

“You haven’t heard?” Sal raised his eyebrows, a smile despite the grimness of his tidings, “A terrible thing.”

“Tell us or shut your grinning mouth,” Almaric growled, “Tis only gossip anyway, I would guess.”

“Not gossip, my friend,” Salladhor leaned on the railings and watched for a while as the twins began to pull the nets from the stacks of crates, “Lord Baratheon of Storm’s End, with his lady wife, sunk in Shipbreaker Bay last night. All souls on board lost, it seems.”

“The Lord Baratheon?” Almaric sucked his teeth and spat over the edge of the ship, “Steffon, I believe?”

“The very same,” Salladhor said, “On his way back from finding a bride for your own Prince Rhaegar.”

Davos shouldered a crate that Owayne handed him and ran down the plank, a little faster than normal, away from the talk of wrecks and sinking. When he came back, they had moved on.

“Doesn’t – didn’t – Lord Baratheon and his lady have three boys?” Allan asked, stooping to nail on a lid that had come loose.

“That he did,” Salladhor frowned, and the frown looked wrong on him, “And I heard that the eldest two were out on the battlements, watching for their parents coming home. They saw the ship sinking and could do nothing.”  
There was silence then. No man of the sea liked to think of the things the water could do.

“How old are they?” Davos couldn’t resist asking, “The sons?”

“The eldest, Robert, is twelve,” Sal said, looking at his nails, “The second, Stannis, just turned eleven. The babe, Renly, is still at his nursemaid’s breast.”

“Poor little sods,” Davos murmured. He had been younger than the older two, five or six, when his own father had been lost at sea. He remembered waking to what he thought was the howl of the wind, but it was not the wind; it was his mother screaming. 

Davos did not remember much about his father beyond the arms that threw him in the air, and the scratchy beard, and the shanties he used to sing. It was far easier for him than it had ever been for his mother; his father had been at sea so often, and for so long, that Davos had barely known him. He thought of his boy, his Dale, about the age of the Baratheon babe, and shuddered. The thought of leaving him and Marya alone in the world brought bile into his mouth. He understood why men took to the sea, he truly did; he could spend hours sitting on the dock wall, watching the ships out to the open water, the waves breaking gently against the hull, the promise of new lands and new lives just across the horizon. But, despite it all, he would never trust the water. 

He would never be able to love it.

“The Stormlands weep tonight,” Sal looked over his shoulder at his crew, who had gathered to be dismissed for the evening, looking longingly away from the ship, towards the taverns at the end of the dock. With a small smile, he pulled his pouch from his coat and handed each man a dragon, seeing every one safely off the ship, “Lord Baratheon was a popular man. They loved him.”

“And what of the boys?” Almaric groaned, dropping to sit on one of the last   
crates and cracking his back. At his signal, they all sat. 

“As different as night and day, or so it is said,” Sal pushed Davos off his box and took his place. Davos chuckled, and settled down on the deck. He crossed his legs and examined a hole in his trousers whilst the others talked.

“The oldest is a true Baratheon,” Sal continued, “A gifted fighter, slow to learn but never forgets once he does. The heart and soul of Storm’s End. So I hear, anyway.”

“And the other? Stannis, was it?”

“Quiet, sullen, too clever for his own good. Always being knocked on his ass by his brother and has a grudge the size of Dorne.”

“Lucky for the Stormlands that the oldest is the better of the pair, then,” Owayne spat, “Well, good luck to the young lord. Seven grant him long life.”

Talk drifted away from the storm then, towards news from Essos and beyond. Travellers at heart, Davos’ team had always cared more for stories from far away. The Stormlands was no more than a spit in the wrong direction away. 

When he returned home that night, filthy and exhausted, he scooped Dale into his arms and took to the rocking chair that his mother had given them when the boy was born. It was the chair that Davos himself had been nursed in, and the rocking motion always calmed him, even now. Dale slept on, oblivious, his little face peeping out from the swaddle of blankets that Marya had wrapped him in. 

“What happened, love?” Marya stole into the room and stood over them, running her hand through Davos’ hair, “Something bothers you.”

So he told her, the whole story, and by the end his soft-hearted, wonderful wife was weeping, for the little lords who would not have wept for Dale had it been his parents killed that night. 

“I hope there is someone who can hold them when they cry tonight,” she said, as Davos handed her Dale and pulled her into his lap, “I hope there is someone to dry their tears.”

“Don’t worry, my sweet,” Davos whispered into her hair, “Someone out there will love them. They’ll never want for a thing.”


End file.
